Wiki tells me that the flash point of Transformer Oil (a type of mineral oil) is 140 C; does that sound safe in a server room? I'm a worse chemist than I am a physicist so I can't tell if you're serious about OSHA not liking mineral oil in server rooms (I'm **pretty** sure you're not serious about frying chicken in the cpu box :-)<div>
I just don't feel that power-gamers should be able to get away with anything unavailable to HPC.<br><div>Peter<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 9:16 AM, Robert G. Brown <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rgb@phy.duke.edu" target="_blank">rgb@phy.duke.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="im">On Mon, 3 Sep 2012, Lux, Jim (337C) wrote:<br>
<br>
> I'll bet they have to change it more often than that. This isnt something<br>
> like a pole transformer.<br>
<br>
</div>Absolutely. Think of what you can do with a big vat of hot oil handy in<br>
the workspace. Buffalo Wings. French Fries. Chicken. Fish. The<br>
reason nobody does this is because OSHA prohibits it -- it is a huge<br>
health hazard. Not even Jolt Cola can keep you thin in a sedentary<br>
profession with your own personal deep frier as close as your server<br>
room. Although you do have to change the oil pretty often, as otherwise<br>
shrimp tails and bits of overcooked tempura crust gunk up the memory and<br>
CPU. Systems people were dying like pudgy little flies of advanced<br>
cardiovascular disease before the practice of using computers to heat<br>
deep fat was banned.<br>
<br>
On a more serious note, one wonders why nobody has tried helium instead.<br>
No, silly, not liquid helium, helium gas. The reason they fill windows<br>
with argon is that it has around 2/3 the thermal conductivity of air,<br>
and hence is a better insulator. This, in turn, is because it is more<br>
massive -- conductivity is tightly tied to mass and hence the speed of<br>
the molecules when they have kT sorts of energies.<br>
<br>
Helium, OTOH, has six times the thermal conductivity of air, and is<br>
relatively inexpensive. The biggest downside I can think of is that it<br>
requires a pretty good seal and thick walls to keep the slippery little<br>
atoms from sliding right through to the outside, and of course the fact<br>
that systems techs would always be hitting up the helium tanks so that<br>
they could talk like Donald Duck. And you'd still have to refrigerate<br>
the outside of the systems units. But all of these things are still<br>
orders of magnitude easier than with oil, and even things like cooling<br>
fans work fine in Helium. Maybe there are other problems -- lower heat<br>
capacity to match its higher conductivity -- but it seems like it is<br>
worth an experiment or two...<br>
<br>
rgb<br>
<br>
Robert G. Brown <a href="http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/" target="_blank">http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/</a><br>
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305<br>
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305<br>
Phone: <a href="tel:1-919-660-2567" value="+19196602567">1-919-660-2567</a> Fax: <a href="tel:919-660-2525" value="+19196602525">919-660-2525</a> <a href="mailto:email%3Argb@phy.duke.edu">email:rgb@phy.duke.edu</a><br>